Chapter Three: The Back of the City

White light passed through it, casting a crowd across the wall: a child in a paper crown, a headless motorcycle rider, a firefighter wreathed in smoke—and Radiant wrapped in chains. “This is an Erasure Hound,” Gu said. “It doesn't eat people. It eats the evidence that a person was ever seen: photographs, recordings, descriptions, and finally memory. When the evidence is gone, that person never came.” “What is Radiant?” Lin asked. “Wherever you hoped she would be, that's where she grew.” Gu opened an unlabeled drawer packed with children's drawings. Every page showed the same girl in silver armor. In one she flew; in another she lifted a building; in a third she held hands with a short-haired child.